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Usage
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<H2 CLASS="section"><A NAME="htoc105">9.1</A>&nbsp;&nbsp;Usage</H2>
This library allows the use of an external mathematical programming 
(LP, MIP or quadratic) solver 
from within ECL<SUP><I>i</I></SUP>PS<SUP><I>e</I></SUP>. It provides a largely solver-independent API
to the programmer, so many programs will run with any supported external
solver.<BR>
<BR>
The library interfaces to both commercial and open-source
solvers. Commercial solver will probably require a license to use the
solver, while the open-source solvers are available free of charge, but are
govererned by their own open-source licenses separate from ECL<SUP><I>i</I></SUP>PS<SUP><I>e</I></SUP>'s.<BR>
<BR>
See section&nbsp;<A HREF="libman063.html#specificsolver">9.11</A> for more details on the supported solvers.<BR>
<BR>
The most generic way to load the library is:
<PRE CLASS="verbatim">
:- lib(eplex).
</PRE><A NAME="@default279"></A>
This will try to load an appropriate external solver available on
the computer.<BR>
<BR>
It is also possible to request a specific solver explicitly,
see section&nbsp;<A HREF="libman063.html#specificsolver">9.11</A> for details.<BR>
<BR>
Note that the ECL<SUP><I>i</I></SUP>PS<SUP><I>e</I></SUP> library described here is just an interface
to an external solver. In order to be able to use it, you need to have
access to a solver supported by the library. For commercial solvers, this
requires a licence for the solver on your machine. For more details,
see section <A HREF="libman063.html#specificsolver">9.11</A>. For open source solvers, the required
solver library may be distributed with ECL<SUP><I>i</I></SUP>PS<SUP><I>e</I></SUP> if its licence allows
this.<BR>
<BR>
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